


Buy the Stars

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Underage Drinking, entirely too much character exposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 18:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11110392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: Owen has the sky burned into his skin, and Axel might just fancy himself an astronomer.





	Buy the Stars

When he was 6 years old, Axel spent a weekend on a farm with his 1st grade class. There, he learned about the local agriculture, how milk made it from the cow to the kitchen, and everything you could possibly want to know about corn. He hated every second of the trip, until night fell.

His class was made up of city kids, who were too used to the thick layer of nighttime smog that rolled across the sky. Most of them had never seen more than a few stars at once. Out there, in the middle of nowhere, where the only lights for miles around were part of the barn and farmhouse, they could see them all. His teacher spent hours with the hardier kids that could stay up later, pointing out constellations, planets, and the odd comet.

When he got home, Axel’s father helped him stick glow in the dark stars to his ceiling. It was the first time the kid had ever been excited about anything. His mother bought him a telescope for his birthday, but of course it was next to useless in the city. So on long weekends, he and his dad would go out of town, to a local campground. The summer after he turned 9, Axel’s telescope broke. He told his mom it fell out the window.

It wasn’t the first time he’d made excuses for his dad.

By the time his parents divorced, Axel had cultivated other interests. Tinkering in the garage with homemade fireworks, robotics, chemistry. He still loved the stars, but now he didn’t just want to observe them. He wanted to be _up_  there. But rocket ships needed to be built by rocket scientists, not pre-teens in their garages.

When he was 13, the Rogues robbed a bank. His mother’s bank, while she was there depositing her paycheck. He ran and hid behind a potted plant, just watching. The Rogues didn’t really hurt anyone, a couple of them even got away before the Flash showed up. Axel liked their guns, and the absolute mastery each seemed to have over their weapons. But he liked the Trickster best. The Trickster didn’t just have weapons, he had _toys_.

Finding the yoyo on the ground outside the bank after the cops had cleared away had felt like a sign. The Trickster retiring a few years later felt like an even bigger sign. It took him a month to track down James Jesse’s storage unit, but less than a week to figure out how to reverse-engineer the majority of his tricks. Which wasn’t surprising, he’d been creating his own tricks for almost a year at that point.

So, become a Trickster. Check. Join a cool gang. Check. Fight the Flash. Big check. Finally stop ignoring the deadly talons of puberty? Well...

It hadn’t entirely been his fault. His father gave him The Talk before he left, and that had been traumatizing enough. But then, nothing happened. Yeah, he got taller, and his voice cracked constantly, and he started finding hair in new and interesting places, but the _other part_  never really kicked in. Girls were just sort of...there. They existed. He knew they existed. He just didn’t care much. Boys were more likely to let him strap bottle rockets to their shoes, or test ultra-sticky gumballs on, so they were at least _useful_  to him. Just, none of his bits were particularly interested in any of their bits. The closest thing he got to a real reaction was the first time Mark, Evan, and Len surrounded him and said yeah okay, you can be a Rogue, kid. There was a definite twitch, but the switch still stayed off.

And then Owen showed up, and that switch was flipped for good.

Owen was. Jeez. Owen was tall. Owen was broad. Owen was only two years older than him, and nine years younger than Evan, who was the third youngest Rogue at 28. Owen had grown up in Gotham City, so he had one of those stupid Gotham accents, but he still managed to make it sound good. Owen smoked shitty cigarettes and drank shittier beer, was always happy to share, and had an amazing habit of taking off his shirt when he was tipsy enough.

“You look like a galaxy,” Axel breathed, exhaling smoke with his words. The other Rogues, or Len at least, would punch him cross-eyed if they found out he was smoking, which was why Axel wasn’t going to let them find out. Owen grinned.

“Well for just a dollar, I’ll let you buy a star and name it whatever you like.” He snorted, like it was some kind of joke, but Axel was already reaching for the wad of cash he kept in his sock.

“I want that one.” He let his nail graze the side of Owen’s nose, pointing out a particularly dark freckle in a cluster of lighter ones. “And I’m naming it Archie.”

Owen accepted his dollar, and laughed. “Bunker or Andrews?”

“Archimedes of Syracuse.” Axel replied seriously. He always let the other Rogues think he was dumb, but for some reason, he wanted, _needed_  Owen to know that he wasn’t. Owen whistled, and Axel bit back a proud smile.

“Hear that, nose freckle? You’re dignified now.” They sat in a companionable silence for a while, Axel choking down a sip of beer every now and then. He hated beer, but Owen had _offered_. “Hey, y’know what? Go on and pick out another one, on the house. That was a helluva cool name, so you earned yourself a freebie.”

Axel’s heart made up for the beat it skipped by going double, triple time. Was this flirting? Were they flirting? In any case, Owen was giving him full rights to scout out another speck, and Axel wasn’t going to take this time for granted.

After a full ten minutes of scanning and searching, he settled on a medium-shaded freckle by Owen’s collarbone. It was slightly less round than the others, sort of looked a bit like a gibbous moon. “Found it.” He tapped the little spot a couple of times, and Owen’s skin broke out in goosebumps.

“Nice. What ya naming it?” He asked, and Axel rubbed his thumb over the freckle.

“Aglaonice.” Owen’s laughter was long and loud, and Axel yanked his hand back like he’d been burned. “What? That’s a good name!”

“Ax, I have no idea who or what that is. You’re making me feel like a dope.” Axel groaned, scrubbing his hands down his face.

“I’m _sorry_ , okay? Aglaonice was this astronomer from ancient Greece. She figured out how to predict lunar eclipses, and people thought she was a sorceress or something. She has this like, girl gang that called themselves the witches of Thessaly and she was _really cool_.” He tugged at his hair, where it fell limply near his ears. “I like _space_  and I liked _learning_  this shit when I was a kid, and some stuff just doesn’t _leave_  when you’re done with it, okay? Owen? Okay?”

Owen said nothing, but reached out and ruffled the bits of hair that were still standing up, flattening them down, and he made a noise of protest. He had to straighten and gel his hair after every shower, else it got super curly and frizzy. 

“Nah, it’s nothing. So, Archie and Aggie it is, yeah?” Axel nodded, bringing the bottle of beer back to his lips. He couldn’t suppress his gag at the taste this time around, and Owen arched a brow. “You don’t like beer, do you?” The foul liquid felt like it was trying to crawl back up his throat, so Axel swallowed harder.

“Uh, no. I kinda hate it, actually? But I’ve never had this kind, so I thought maybe...” And then Owen was laughing again but for some reason, Axel didn’t feel patronized.

“That’s what I like about you, Ax! You’re not afraid to try new things!” Owen grabbed the half-finished beer from his hand, putting it to his lips and draining it in a few short gulps. Axel was hypnotized by the way his throat moved. Near the base, Aglaonice was in stark contrast as his skin tightened, the lighter freckles fading to nothing. “Some advice, though?” His words seemed to come from far away, and Axel shook his head to snap himself back to the present.

“Huh?” Owen grinned, his lower lip stilled pressed to the mouth of the bottle.

“I said, but maybe for future notice? Don’t put the neck of the bottle in your mouth.” Axel blinked, and Owen’s grin morphed into more of a leer. “It’s a beer, Axel, not a dick.”

Axel felt the flush creep up the back of his neck, but was up and moving before Owen could properly notice. He was out the skylight in seconds, a new personal best. The night air felt cool on his face, and though he could barely make out a dozen stars in the dark sky, the moon was a waxing gibbous. The sight of it made his mind snap back to that little freckle on Owen’s neck. He owned that freckle, now. It was his.

_It’s a beer, Axel, not a dick._

Oh. Oh man. Oh jeez. A grin spread across his face, ten times as fast as the blush had.

“Oh my god, we’re definitely flirting.”


End file.
